


Agelast

by redemptivs (orderandsophism)



Series: Max and Furiosa Are Bad at Everything [1]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Domestic, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Fluffy Ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-28 23:29:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6350011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orderandsophism/pseuds/redemptivs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt:<br/>Agelast - A person who never laughs.</p><p>Max never laughs. Furiosa thinks that's dumb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Agelast

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ghostsjogging](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostsjogging/gifts).



Capable laughs like an arpeggio. The Dag wheezes like an old bellows. Toast lets out a single bark of laughter, sharp and short. Cheedo sounds like what Furiosa thinks the twinkle of a crystal must sound like: just as clear, just as pure. 

Furiosa doesn’t fancy herself a humorous person. She’s not often the one who elicits laughter from her friends, but she notes their humors with the acuity of fondness. And it is the same care that also notes that Max never laughs.

At least she’s never heard him do so, not in all the months and days since he’d returned to the Citadel. He wakes in silence, he works in silence, he crawls into her bed as quietly as he pushes his head into her hand and asks for affection. He smiles at her with round endearment, simple and honest, and she is sure he is happy, but she’s only never heard him laugh.

Months ago, when The Dag had gone through her pregnancy, she’d stockpiled children’s books, stashed under her cot while she awaited the arrival of her daughter. Forgotten now, Furiosa peruses her selection and chooses a little withered copy of a picture book to take out to the ground.

Max is in his usual spot behind an outcropping of rock that keeps him out of sight and allows him to work on his car fairly unmolested. Occupied with something under the hood, he’d hardly noticed Furiosa’s approach. 

She finds a sizable rock to perch on and clears her throat theatrically as she turns to a suitable page in the book. “What do you call a bear with no teeth?” she asks, her voice bold with temerity.

Max stops, looking over his shoulder at her with curiosity. 

“A gummy bear,” she answers, grinning.

A slow smile spreads on his lips, and she continues, encouraged.

“What do you call a cow with no legs? Ground beef.”

A sharp exhale through his nose sounds, but it is no laugh. Not one she’d accept, anyways. So she goes on.

“What do you call a pig that does … care … care-ate?” She looks at him, confused.

“Karate,” he corrects, gently.

“Karate,” she repeats, brow furrowed. “What do you call a pig that does karate?”

“What?” he asks.

“A porkchop.” 

She sees Max’s shoulders judder jaggedly, and knows that he is laughing. Silently, but it’s something. But still not enough. 

“What do you call an owl magician?” She squints at the answer and reads it out slowly. “Hoo-dini.”

Max lets out an loud ungainly laugh, an unearthly sound that sounds like the bleating of a monstrous lamb, high pitched and strange. His body is wracked with convulsions as he props himself up on the car’s frame and carries on, his laughter reverberating in terrifying canon, echoes against the rocks. He finally cracks an eye open and sees Furiosa’s surprise, and chokes out an attempt at explanation. “Hoodini,” he repeats, between gasps of laughter. “Because … he’s an owl … “

His laughter is irresistible, and she finds herself smiling wide. “I don’t get it,” she says softly. “What’s a Hoodini …?”

“Oh god,” he nearly sobs. “You don’t know-?” He stops, and considers. Houdini and magicians and owls are relics of his time, but not hers. She, a daughter of the apocalypse. The import of her effort hits him with penetrating clarity. She doesn’t know what any of these jokes mean. But she reads them with unmistakable intent. 

He turns his attentions back to what’s under his hood. “What do you call a cloud’s unmentionables?” he mumbles slowly, his voice gravel and grit. 

Furiosa folds her legs beneath her and shifts in place, eager to play along. “What?” 

“Thunderwear.”

Furiosa’s laugh is hardly melodic, low and light, but it’s hearty. Unadorned. And Max decides he likes it. 

“You’ll love this one,” he promises, throwing a look at her over his shoulder. “My mate told me this one years ago …”

Their laughter falls quickly into a mesmeric polyphony, a moment of simple, prelapsarian ease in which nothing matters but the incomplex nature of this evanescent moment. It resonates into the air, until the sound is lost among the grit and the clouds.


End file.
